It
seems big media's "long journey has finally taken it to a distant place
where we can no longer reach it."

At the time Reagan was
president, I was too young (around ten, I think) and too naive (hell, it was
the Eighties) to completely understand the true extent of the damage this
man's work had wrought upon the world.

Okay, so that's my
excuse.

But what explains the
grating and unctuous paeans spewing forth from our heads of state and the
"free" press that dutifully and shamelessly reports on them? Paeans to a man
who -- if there were any justice in this world -- would have been tried for
crimes against humanity several times over? What's the excuse? Ten-year-olds
growing up in the Eighties?

Displaying a
staggering ignorance of history, former president Bill Clinton says he'll
always remember Reagan "for keeping America at the forefront of the fight
for freedom for people everywhere."

This is the same
Reagan who vetoed a series of UN resolutions that attempted to punish the
undemocratic South African government (between 1978 and 1987 there were over
10 such instances). This is the same Reagan who attempted to scuttle the
Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act that Congress passed in 1986, and refused
to support economic sanctions against the white racist South African regime.
This is the same Reagan who called South Africa a "friendly nation" whose
reliable anti-communism and wealth of strategic minerals justified stronger
ties between Washington and Pretoria. And this is the same Reagan who
considered the ANC and Nelson Mandela "terrorist." All this, while the
entire international community was united in opposing apartheid in South
Africa.

Supine as ever before
the shadow of Empire, Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf takes a cue from
the ghost of another Pakistani dictator -- Zia-ul-Haq -- who served Empire
so well in South Asia throughout his (and Reagan's) tyranny. Musharraf
gushes that "Reagan will be remembered for his great vision and commitment
to freedom. His contribution in securing world peace has earned him a
permanent place in history."

Tell me he's talking
about the same Reagan, and not a body double, who oversaw thirteen separate
military aggressions in his time? The same Reagan whose "commitment to
freedom" entailed the brutal oppression of no less than six free nations in
Latin America and the Caribbean, multiple attacks on at least three
sovereign Mid-East nations, and collusion with a dictator in orchestrating a
bloodbath-and-a-half in the Philippines? The same Reagan whose "contribution
in securing world peace" included the supply of weapons, training and
intelligence to BOTH Iran and Iraq -- simultaneously -- a contribution that
left 1.5 million dead and another 1.7 million wounded?

Former House Speaker
Newt Gingrich isn't far behind in his oleaginous tribute: "All free people
stand on Reagan’s shoulders. His principled policies proved... that all
people everywhere deserve the right to dream, to pursue their dreams, and to
govern themselves."

Right. Could this be
the same Reagan whose principled policies financed, armed and provided
logistical support to the Contras in Nicaragua? In the words of 13-year CIA
veteran and former US Marine Corps major, John Stockwell: "the Contras have
been assassinating religious workers, teachers, health workers, elected
officials, government administrators... They use terror to traumatize
society so that it cannot function. They go into villages. They haul out
families. With the children forced to watch, they castrate the father. They
peel the skin off his face. They put a grenade in his mouth, and pull the
pin. With the children forced to watch, they gang-rape the mother, and slash
her breasts off. And sometimes, for variety, they make the parents watch
while they do these things to the children."

The Contras, if you're
not afflicted by Alzheimer's, are the same people Reagan called "freedom
fighters" and "the moral equivalent of our founding fathers and the brave
men and women of the French Resistance." That these "moral equivalents"
killed some 50,000 Nicaraguans is deemed irrelevant. That the US was handed
harsh indictments by the World Court at the Hague, the UN Security Council
and the UN General Assembly (and told to pay reparations to the tune of $17
billion) is deemed irrelevant. That the US also treated these indictments
with utter disdain is also deemed irrelevant. And though most of us remember
Reagan proclaiming "I am Contra!" it is clear that big media does not.

Meanwhile, in a
blatantly revisionist elegy to Reagan in The Scotsman, Dinesh D'Souza claims
that "thanks to an American invasion, Grenada became the first country in
history to be liberated from the clutches of Soviet communism."

This is the same
Grenada, population in the neighbourhood of 100,000, which Chomsky famously
called "nutmeg nation," and which you can't find on a map on account of it
being just 133 square miles. While D'Souza struggles with the nuances that
demarcate "the clutches of soviet communism" from socialism, a small history
lesson is in order. In 1979 Maurice Bishop established on the island a
socialist government which survived four years of US-engineered incursions.
This government was overthrown in an internal power struggle among left-wing
groups and, within three weeks of Bishop's ouster and assassination, Reagan
launched Operation Urgent Fury against Grenada, claiming that the invasion
was "forced on us by events that have no precedent in the eastern
Caribbean," leaving America with “no choice but to act strongly and
decisively." Around 2,000 US Marines "fought" for a week, destroying a
mental hospital, killing 84 Cubans busy building an airstrip, and 400
Grenadians (nearly ten times the number involved in active duty). However,
some 7,000 US servicemen (over three times the number involved in active
duty) were designated heroes and given decorations. Grenada, just like Cuba
and Nicaragua, was no more than the Chomskian 'threat of a good example' to
other Third World countries in the region.

Moving on to Reagan's
mythological role in bringing the Cold War to an end, it's instructive to
see how those labouring under the impression are the opposite to Reagan in
disposition. After all, Reagan said what he believed. These guys believe
what they say.

Here's a brief
sampling:

“He will be honored as
the President who won the Cold War, and his ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this
wall’ will be linked forever with President Kennedy’s ‘Ich bin ein
Berliner.’" (Senator Edward Kennedy)

“He brought down the
Evil Empire and made the world safer for my children and theirs.” (Lt. Col.
Oliver North, National Security Council official under Reagan)

"Ronald Reagan had a
higher claim than any other leader to have won the Cold War for liberty, and
he did it without a shot being fired." (Margaret Thatcher)

"His statesmanlike
pursuit of more stable relations with the Soviet Union helped bring about
the end of the Cold War." (Tony Blair)

"He made great efforts
to overcome the Cold War." (South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun)

"Lithuania is grateful
and will remain grateful for his firm resistance to the Evil Empire, giving
us an opportunity for us to regain our freedom and return to democracy."
(Former Lithuanian parliamentary Speaker Vytautas Landsbergis)

"More than anybody
else, he followed the policies that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the end of the Cold War and the final victory of a more free-market approach
to the management of economies" (John Howard)

The market forces
forcing Moscow's apparatchiks to pull the plug on the arms race? Forgotten.

The Soviet Union's
crippling engagement in Afghanistan? Forgotten.

The East Bloc's
destitute economy? Forgotten.

The hundreds of
thousands of ordinary people putting their lives on the line in Romania,
Czechoslovakia and Poland? Forgotten.

That solitary man with
the grocery bags facing a column of tanks on Tiananmen Square? Forgotten.

My, and one thought
Alzheimer's wasn't contagious.

Someday, not anytime
soon, it'll appear that Reagan's role in bringing the Cold War to an end was
no more than simply being present to watch a cripple take his wheelchair
down the spiral staircase. Had someone with the intelligence of George Bush
been president at that time, the results would have been pretty much the
same.

Of course, this
picture wouldn't be complete without a soundbite from the Fuehrer himself.
Reading the teletext screen with appropriate gravitas, George (War
President) Bush says "This is a sad hour in the life of America. A great
American life has come to an end. Ronald Reagan won America's respect with
his greatness, and won its love with his goodness. He had the confidence
that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character, the
grace that comes with humility, and the humour that comes with wisdom. He
leaves behind a nation he restored and a world he helped save." He further
characterized Reagan as someone who "believed without question that tyranny
is temporary, and the hope of freedom is universal and permanent."

The said greatness,
goodness, conviction, character, humility, wisdom, et cetera, were
illustrated by Reagan's lowering of taxes for America's rich, and cutting
spending for essential public services for America's poor – nearly
everything from the arts to public education to AIDS research was
underfunded. In fact, Reagan's criminal neglect of the AIDS crisis that
emerged on his watch killed over 70,000 Americans under his very nose. And
this happened at the same time that his administration was busy increasing
spending for select programs dealing with the military and private business.

Michael Bronski
reports at forward.com that "although AIDS was first reported in the medical
and popular press in 1981, it was only in October of 1987 that President
Reagan publicly spoke about the epidemic. By the end of that year 59,572
AIDS cases had been reported and 27,909 of those women and men had died...
AIDS research was chronically under-funded. When doctors at the Centers for
Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health asked for more funding
for their work on AIDS, they were routinely denied it. Between June 1981 and
May 1982 the CDC spent less than $1 million on AIDS and $9 million on
Legionnaire's Disease. At that point more than 1,000 of the 2,000 reported
AIDS cases resulted in death; there were fewer than 50 deaths from
Legionnaire's Disease. This drastic lack of funding would continue through
the Reagan years... By the end of 1989 and the Reagan years, 115,786 women
and men had been diagnosed with AIDS in the United States."

So there you have it.

One could go on with
the litany of outrages committed on Reagan's watch, including the fact that
he presided over a decade of really, truly, unspeakably bad music. But if
there's one thing he'll be remembered for, it's passing the contagion of his
sickness on to others.

Gene Hashmi
has worked with some of the world's most unscrupulous, dishonest and
successful advertising agencies. By way of atonement, he runs The Daily
Dissidence, Singapore's only news source that doesn't seek the approval of
mainstream media. At the rate of one new subscriber every other day, The
Daily Dissidence has quickly become the most circulated, criticized and
controversial mailing list in this police state. You can contact Gene at
hacktivist@dangerous-minds.com or (+65) 96 704 701. If this goes on for
long, you can eventually reach him at Changi Prison.